


With Grace In Your Heart

by aban_ataashi



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Character Study, Desta - Freeform, Gen, my oc watcher, started as a small headcanon drabble and now we're here, thoughts on being a godlike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 11:57:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14748414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aban_ataashi/pseuds/aban_ataashi
Summary: They say she is a child marked by the gods.(One day, she will realize she is so much more.)





	With Grace In Your Heart

Give back to the Lord of the Hunt what is his, they tell her, and it takes the woman nearly a year to do so.

She tried. Hylea bless her soul, she did. But she doesn’t know what to do with a child like this. When she first saw the baby, she had thought it was gripped with a strange sickness, and she had mourned the child she thought would soon be lost. But the baby lived, and it was soon evident that this was no medical affliction.

The woman had given birth to a godlike.

Everyone knows the rumors of the strange kith touched by the gods at birth. Each god has their own marking that they grant to their chosen. There is no mistaking the mossy, bark-skinned babe as anything but a child of Galawain.

The woman lays her bundle softly on the forest floor. She knows she is not the first who could not handle the so-called blessing the gods have given, and she knows she will not be the last. The baby fusses in its wrappings, and the woman gives the child one last, long look. Its sickly green face peeks out from the blankets, mottled by moss. The stubs that will one day grow into twisted horns are clearly visible poking out above its forehead.

Worst of all are the eyes. The woman believes- or perhaps wants to believe- that she could look past the strange features if she could only look into the child’s face and see a reflection of her and her husband, the way children are meant to be. But the eyes looking back at her are completely foreign; yellow and oddly luminescent, they speak of something the woman knows she will never understand, even if she had the desire.

When the child was born, the midwife warned her that raising such a thing would be difficult. Sometimes, she had said, it was best to return the child to the gods. At the time, the woman thought she could fight fate through sheer stubbornness. Now, she’s tired of pretending that this is the family she wanted.

So she leaves the child in the wilderness. This is Galawain’s child, after all, and these woods are Galawain’s domain. Let him decide what should be done. The woman wants nothing more to do with it.

_(One day, Desta will stand before the gods and argue with them about souls. She will look up at Galawain and search his face for a hint of recognition. She will wait for him to make a claim to her soul, her life, her choices. She will not know if she can give him trust or forgiveness until he asks for it._

_He will not ask. He will not call her child. He will call her mortal as if she does not bear his touch. Desta will almost lose her temper then, will come close to demanding he acknowledge her and tell her **why.** But she will not, because there are more pressing matters at hand, and because she refuses to give him the power of making her angry. _

_In the end, despite everything, she will have too much pride to plead for answers. )_

The abbess says that all things happen for a reason. She says that Galawain led the group of hunters through the forest to where Desta lay in her blanket. She says that Hylea moved their hearts and told them to bring the godlike baby to the orphanage. She says that to be born like this is a gift, one the ignorant villagers do not understand, and that Desta is meant for great things.

But Desta’s life is full of contradictions. Outside of the temple, people stare at her and recoil from her touch. Even the hunters who call her good luck are unnerved by her presence when she visits them in the market.

And Galawain is silent.

 _(One day,_ _Desta will split a bottle of wine between two friends that are the same as her and yet wildly different. They will speak of blessings and curses, and although their interpretations vary as greatly as their appearances, the common thread of the unusual will bind them together._

_In the end, Desta will look back on all the odd things she’s seen in her life and think it strange that something as trivial as leaves growing from her skin was ever made into such a big deal. There are far more interesting things than that. There are men who embrace their gifts and use them to guide their people with compassion deep as the ocean. There are women who reject their shackles and forge their own fates with iron hearts and loyalty that reaches the skies. These people will inspire Desta more than any god ever did.)_

 

The temple is still when Desta enters it for the last time. She kneels and prays and meditates, and waits for some kind of answer. When none comes, she goes to the forest on the outskirts of town and repeats the process.

The abbess wants her to stay with the clergy. Despite her restlessness, the abbess still believes she was meant to serve the gods. Desta thinks of the future she would have there, all her days spent in the safe and dusty temple, and she can feel the slow death it would be. The hunters agree with the abbess, but they serve their god in the wilderness, in the hunt. They would take her if she asked, but Desta has tried to learn their skills before and failed miserably. If she cannot string a bow or scout a path, what would she be to them other than a good luck charm?

In the end, Desta only knows that feels nothing from Galawain. She should, shouldn’t she? If she is truly his daughter? And yet he means no more to Desta than the mother who abandoned her so long ago. So she refuses both fates and sets off on her own, ready to find who she is when she is not in Galawain’s shadow.

_(One day, Desta will compare stories with another who once prayed to Galawain for answers. He will have been less lucky than her, and will bear the scars to prove it._

_Galawain, he will eventually say, is a god of tests and survival. He does not give what is not earned. He does not nurture. He lets nature run its course, and only when the strongest have proven themselves worthy will he then acknowledge them._

_That won’t seem right to Desta. Life may not be fair, but perhaps the gods should be. The orlan will finger his eyepatch and shrug and reply that it’s all a bit bullshit, isn’t it?_

_Desta will laugh and agree, because this scarred man is one of the most resilient people she’s ever met, and if Galawain couldn’t see that to begin with he must truly be blind. And she will know that neither of them ever needed strength from Galawain, anyway.)_

 

The Living Lands are wild and vast, and Desta spends years drifting through them. She keeps moving because she’s curious, and she wants to see the world and all the strange things within it. She keeps moving because it’s all she’s done since she left her town and she doesn’t know what else she would do.

Most of the people she meets are wary of her- not all, but enough that she’s accustomed to it. It doesn’t bother her. She’s long stopped caring what other people think. If all they see is a bedraggled traveler covered in overgrown foliage, there’s not much she can do about it.

Desta keeps moving because she’s searching for something to call home, where people look at her and see something more.

_(One day, Desta will meet a man with a sheepish smile and thoughtful eyes and a mind that never stops running itself in circles. They will travel and talk and save each other’s lives on many occasions, and it will take Desta nearly six years to gather the courage to kiss him. Her heart will pound with joy when he kisses her back._

_When they’re together, she will feel a peace she’s not accustomed to, and he will look at her with wonder. Their love is their own, quiet and private, but when they go out in the city they will stand close enough that their knuckles brush. He will give Desta a small smile, and Desta will know that he truly sees her.)_

The Kind Wayfarers light a spark inside Desta. She is on the road alone, injured and cornered by a drake, and they appear from nowhere with weapons in hand. She can’t take her eyes off them, these brave warriors that protect her so valiantly and ask nothing in return.

“What god do you serve?” she asks, because surely they must serve somebody. In Desta’s experience, everything people do is because it will earn them coin or because it was assigned to them by a god.

But the paladin only gives her a proud smile and says, “We serve the kith who need us.”

Desta’s breath catches, and her soul fills with hunger for this light, so clear and strong. “I want to be like that.”

The paladin surveys the godlike girl, with her mace and her travel-worn clothes and her mossy skin and her undisguised passion. “You’re a strange one, all right. You’ll fit right in.”

They take her in and teach her their ways, and when Desta takes to the road again it is with a new mission burning in her heart. This is who she is- not a lonely child, an aimless traveler, an oddity whose fate is tied to the hands of the gods. She is, above all else, a protector. A guide. A Wayfarer.

_(One day, Desta will be told what it means to be godlike, and her blood will run cold. Berath’s voice will betray no emotion when she speaks of how the godlike- their children, she calls them, their fucking **children** \- belong to them. How they can be possessed. How they can be absorbed for energy. How they would so readily use and discard the lives of those they claim to favor._

_“Fuck you,” she will tell them, and she won’t care what they might do to her. “Fuck all of you.” She will see only proud indifference in response. No protest. No guilt. And despite her anger and her hatred she will pity them, these lonesome creatures who have lived too long and seen too much and have no grasp on what it means to love somebody._

_“Just wake me up.” Berath’s gaze will be heavy, but it will not intimidate Desta the way it did once. They both know there's too much at stake to send her to the Wheel now. “We’re done talking.”)_

 

Desta collects wildflowers from the fields and braids them into her hair. She decorates herself with blooms of purple, red, blue, orange, bright shining yellow. The flowers are woven into crowns around her horns, laced through the bands of her clothing, even wrapped into the grip of her mace.

Over time they fall away or wither, but new ones always take their place. The point isn’t to keep them forever. The point is that while they last, they’re beautiful and colorful and they make her smile.

Sunflowers are Desta’s favorite. She loops a particularly large one through her hair and studies herself in the makeshift mirror of her silver armor. The flower distracts from her mossy skin, the ferny fungus that crawls down her neck. It takes her weirdness and transforms it, turns it around and throws it back to the world with a brand new color.

Desta can’t do anything about the weeds that cover her skin. But she can always make sure there are flowers in her hair.

_(One day, Desta will watch The Wheel itself crumble before her eyes. She will be angry and afraid and helpless to stop it, and for a moment she will wonder what the point was in ever trying. Then she will shake herself off, adjust the sun-dried flowers in her hair, and tighten her grip on her mace._

_She was speaking truth when she told Eothas she believed in this world, and in the people’s potential to do good in it. And now, more than ever, she has a lot of work to do and a lot of choices to make. And she will make them on her own.)_

**Author's Note:**

> To those curious, the title comes from After The Storm by Mumford & Sons. (I'm not great at coming up with titles, so I take lyrics from songs on my character playlists.)


End file.
